Ex Parte Ragan

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 4, 2015

11959993 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 4, 2015)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte RICHARD RAGAN
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Appeal 2012-006732
Application 11/959,993
Technology Center 2100
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Before DONALD E. ADAMS, DEMETRA J. MILLS, and
JEFFREY N. FREDMAN, Administrative Patent Judges.

ADAMS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL1
This appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 involves claims 1–20 (App. Br. 4).
Examiner entered rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.

1 The Real Party in Interest is eBay Inc. (App. Br. 2.)
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The claims are directed to a system and method to maintain a web
page (Spec. ¶ 2). Claims 1 and 8 are representative and are reproduced in
the Claims Appendix of Appellant’s Brief.
Claims 1, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14–18, and 20 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over the combination of Treder2 and
Tsun.3
Claims 2–4, 7, and 13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over the combination of Treder, Tsun, and George.4
Claim 10 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over the combination of Treder, Tsun, and Copeland.5
Claim 19 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over the combination of Treder, Tsun, and Seligman.6
ISSUE
Does the preponderance of evidence relied upon by Examiner support
a conclusion of obviousness?
FACTUAL FINDINGS (FF)
FF 1. Treder “relates to tools for assisting software and web developers
and other computer users in developing, analyzing, and/or maintaining
executable components used to dynamically generate web pages and other
types of electronic documents” (Treder, col. 1, ll. 18–22; see generally Ans.
4).

2 Treder et al., US 7,392,510 B1, issued June 24, 2008.
3 Tsun, US 7,644,315 B2, issued Jan. 5, 2010.
4 George et al., US 7,685,229 B1, issued Mar. 23, 2010.
5 Copeland et al., US 2002/0111992 A1, published Aug. 15, 2002.
6 Seligman et al., US 7,539,619 B1, issued May 26, 2009.
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FF 2. Examiner finds that Treder suggests
[A] “web server system” that embeds a script and mapping
structure into a web page to enable an end user to interactively
view the associations between web page components and
executable server components . . . only in response to particular
conditions, e.g., a web page request accompanied by a
particular cookie, or a request generated at an authorized IP
address.
(Ans. 11–12 (emphasis added); see also id. at 4–5; see also Treder, col. 6, ll.
45–57.)
FF 3. Examiner finds that Treder fails to suggest embedding the script and
mapping structure into a web page “in response to detecting a state of a flag
indicating an instruction to augment HTML markup of a web page” (Ans. 5
and 12).
FF 4. Examiner finds that Tsun suggests “including a flag with a client
request for a web page” and “[i]n response to detecting the presence of the
flag, additional information associated with the web page is provided to the
user” (Ans. 5).
FF 5. Tsun suggests “systems and methods relating to the debugging of
content requests,” wherein “a document at a location is requested that
contains a script, where, the request includes an indicator. The requested
document is received and the script is executed to test the status of a
condition” (Tsun, col. 1, ll. 35–41; Ans. 5 and 12).
FF 6. Tsun suggests that a
[P]rocess . . . to provide debugging information begins with a
request for a document or content from a web site where errors
are encountered is made by including a flag (or other indicator)
with the request . . . . For example, a flag “google . . . debug”
can be added to the URL of a web page content location as
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follows: http://www.website-with-errors.com/
index.htm?google . . . debug. . . . .
Next, the requested document is received . . ., and various
conditions are tested to diagnose the cause of the errors.
(Tsun, col. 3, ll. 43–54; Ans. 5 and 12.)
FF 7. Examiner finds that the combination of Treder and Tsun fails to
suggest
(1) that the mapping comprises a custom attribute placed on an
HTML tag, as in claims 2 and 13; (2) that the mapping
comprises an additional HTML tag, the additional HTML tag
wrapping a region of the HTML markup of the web page, as in
claim 3; (3) that the mapping comprises an HTML comment, as
in claim 4; or (4) that the granularity associated with the
mapping is at a level of an HTML tag in the HTML markup of
the web page, as in claim 7
and relies on George to make up for the foregoing deficiencies in the
combination of Treder and Tsun (Ans. 8).
FF 8. Examiner finds that the combination of Treder and Tsun fails to
suggest “that the generated markup instructions are stored for future use, as
is required by [Appellant’s] claim 10” and relies on Copeland to make up for
the foregoing deficiencies in the combination of Treder and Tsun (Ans. 10).
FF 9. Examiner finds that the combination of Treder and Tsun fails to
suggest “that the request to activate the script includes a Ctrl Left-Click
mouse sequence, as in [Appellant’s] claim 17” and relies on Seligman to
make up for the foregoing deficiencies in the combination of Treder and
Tsun (Ans. 10).
ANALYSIS
Based on the combination of Treder and Tsun, Examiner concludes
that, at the time Appellant’s invention was made, it would have been prima
facie obvious “to modify the system taught by Treder such that, in addition
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to or as an alternative to a web page request accompanied by a particular
cookie or generated at an authorized IP address, including a flag with the
request, like [that] taught by Tsun” to provide “additional information
associated with the web page (i.e. the augmentation of the HTML markup of
the web page with the mapping” (Ans. 5 (emphasis added)). We are not
persuaded.
According to Examiner, a person of ordinary skill in this art would
have found it prima facie obvious to modify (1) Treder’s system and method
for requesting a document from a particular IP address with (2) Tsun’s
system and method for requesting a document from a particular IP address
(e.g., http://www.website-with-errors.com/ index.htm?google . . . debug)
(see FF 2 and 6; see also App. Br. 11 (“Tsun describes including a flag (e.g.,
‘google . . . debug’) with the request for content”); Reply Br. 5). In sum,
Tsun simply embellishes Treder’s suggestion to request a document from a
particular IP address by explaining that the particular IP address is reached
by including additional text (i.e., a flag, e.g., “google . . . debug”) in the IP
address. Thus, the evidence relied upon by Examiner establishes that Treder
and Tsun suggest that a user can retrieve a document from a particular IP
address (FF 2 and 6). While the combination of Treder and Tsun suggests
that a particular IP address that includes a flag can be used to retrieve a
document, Examiner failed to establish an evidentiary basis on this record to
support a conclusion that the system and method suggested by the
combination of Treder and Tsun is concerned with a particular “state of a
flag” as opposed to simply identifying a particular IP address (Cf.
Appellant’s claims 1 and 8; see also App. Br. 11 (“the flag described in Tsun
does not have a state”); Reply Br. 5–6).
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Examiner failed to establish an evidentiary basis on this record to
support a conclusion that any of George, Copeland, or Seligman make up for
the foregoing deficiency in the combination of Treder and Tsun (see FF 7–
9).
CONCLUSION OF LAW
The preponderance of evidence relied upon by Examiner fails to
support a conclusion of obviousness.
The rejection of claims 1, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14–18, and 20 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over the combination of Treder and Tsun
is reversed.
The rejection of claims 2–4, 7, and 13 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over the combination of Treder, Tsun, and George is reversed.
The rejection of claim 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over the combination of Treder, Tsun, and Copeland is reversed.
The rejection of claim 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over the combination of Treder, Tsun, and Seligman is reversed.

REVERSED

cdc